From Hamlet (IV. iv. 32-66):
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour’s at the stake.
Analyze your chosen passage, paying close
attention to the language and literary devices used in it. You should be answering the following questions:
What is the author doing here? How is the author doing it?
What is the significance of your observations (as relates to the theme of the passage or text as a whole, but also to our study of tragedy)?
You may discuss the passage in the context of the larger work, but please concentrate primarily on the passage itself.
You will need a clear and challenging thesis around which to build your essay (see handout on the Three Storey Thesis in Handouts under the Content tab). A good approach in this case is to take your answers to the questions above and use them to formulate a thesis. For example, your answer to “what is the author doing here?” would be the argument of your thesis (second storey); your answer to “how is the author doing it?” would be the topic of your thesis (first storey); and your answer to “what is the significance of your observations?” would be the
significance of your thesis (third storey).
The paper must also have an introduction, a body of supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. Please underline the thesis as well as the topic sentences of each of the paragraphs in the body of the essay. You must reference all quotations and include a Works Cited (listing the text to which the passage belongs and any modules from which you draw information; you should use no other secondary sources). Please use MLA format in your in-text citations and bibliography.
Specifically, I will evaluate this assignment based on the following elements: 1) your ability to perform a close reading of a short segment of text (i.e., to construct a convincing argument about the passage based specifically on your analysis of the language and theme of the passage itself as they relate to tragedy); 2) your ability to isolate at least one important idea in the passage and intelligently discuss its thematic importance; 3) the ability to express yourself clearly and coherently in English.
